Prescription Comedy: An Unlikely Antidote to Physician Burnout

By Pranathi Kondapaneni

The secret to healing from physician burnout, re-connecting with loved ones and rediscovering daily joy resides in an unlikely place: the comedy club.  

In Prescription Comedy, author Dr. Pranathi Kondapaneni shares her personal journey with on-the-job burnout and how an almost accidental for

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ingenium Books
• Release date: Feb 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781989059180

Pranathi Kondapaneni

Pranathi Kondapaneni is a physician, writer, and explorer-in-chief. At the age of sixteen, she was accepted into a combined BA/MD program. By twenty-four, she had completed four degrees: two undergraduate (in economics and biology), a master's in public health, and a medical degree. After completing a residency in neurology and two fellowships in sleep and epilepsy, Dr. Kondapaneni spent a decade in private-practice. Frustration with clinical medicine led Dr. Kondapaneni, in 2015, to set out on a series of adventures to help improve communication in the medical office and combat physician burnout. These adventures have included comedy routines to classes on artistic visual observation. Dr. Kondapaneni enjoys exploring other disciplines in order to empower physicians to improve communication and combat burnout.
 She lives in Michigan but has traveled extensively, including to Australia, India, Chile, and South Africa. She also likes traveling around the United States. She enjoys audiobooks and podcasts, the smell of coffee in the a.m., sipping on a good cup of tea, and soaking up culture through art, architecture, food, or a great movie.

Book preview

Prescription Comedy

Prescription Comedy

an unlikely antidote to physician burnout

Pranathi Kondapaneni, MD, MPH.

Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.

Contents

Introduction

THE WHITE COAT’S FAILURE

1. Dent in My Armor

2. Anatomy of Disillusion

3. Anatomy of Physician Burnout

4. Female Physician Burnout

5. Why Physicians Burn Out

6. The Burnout Cure

MY COMEDIC ADVENTURES

7. The Flame Challenge

8. Zip Zap Zop

9. The Connection Conundrum

10. Foreign Accents

11. Educate, Entertain, Inspire

THE COMEDIC CURE

12. The Good of a Simple Smile

13. Jump. Dance. Treasure.

14. A Beautiful Goodbye

APPENDIX

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other books by Pranathi:

Notes

Copyright @2021 Pranathi Kondapaneni

All rights reserved in all countries and territories.

Published by Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6P 1Z2

https://ingeniumbooks.com

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Ingenium Books supports copyright. Copyright fuels innovation and creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and helps create vibrant culture. Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing this book or any part of it without permission. You are supporting writers and helping ensure Ingenium Books can continue to publish nonfiction books for readers like you. You are permitted to excerpt brief quotations in a review. For all other permission requests, please contact the author in writing via the contact form at www.thephysicianphoenix.com.

ISBNs:

978-1-989059-17-3 (paperback/softcover)

978-1-989059-18-0 (electronic)

978-1-989059-19-7 (hardcover/hardback)

978-1-989059-21-0 (audiobook)

978-1-989059-20-3 (large print)

This publication was written by a physician. Material in this book is for education and entertainment purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as medical advice. The reader has no therapeutic relationship with the physician author. While the publisher and author have made every attempt to verify that the information provided in this book is correct and up to date, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for an error, inaccuracy, or omission.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Mark Twain

To my parents, for giving me wings.

To my teachers, for gifting me comedy.

To Thanhvan, for granting me courage.

Introduction

White as a cloud on a full sunny day.

Crisp as a freshly-laundered sheet.

Pure as the touch of a newborn.

These were the sensations that washed over me as I felt the edges of my new white coat, which had just been given to me in the White Coat Ceremony. It was the autumn of 1997. It was just a short white coat because I was still a medical student. Still, it was exhilarating to feel the material, smell the freshness, and see my name in cursive blue above the right breast pocket. This was my first step on the path toward mending, healing, and curing. Or so I thought.

During the ceremony, the first-year medical students were inducted into the world of medicine by reciting the Hippocratic oath. The line that resonated with me the most was the following: I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug. ¹

When I look back on that day, I remember feeling a sense of innocent, optimistic empowerment. Over the years, this sense of empowerment would be replaced by realistic, pessimistic down-trodden-ness. Before medical school, I had envisioned a Norman Rockwell–painting utopia in which doctors spent time connecting with patients. Instead, the reality was a George Orwell–flavored dystopia in which doctors were cogs in a machine with no decent time for connecting with patients.

As the weight of a medical system that didn’t value connection grew, my burnout festered like an open sore. The pus of feeling like a glorified bookkeeper in a system of endless paperwork and non-patient-related tasks oozed out of me slowly, day by day. What could I do about the situation? I couldn’t change a healthcare system that valued perverse economic health incentives over patient care. Yet, I could improve the communication inside my own clinical office. Thus began my quest to improve the physician-patient bond through improved communication. Little did I know that my answer would be found in the world of comedy.

So, did I become a professional comedian? Nope. And that’s ok. Because that was never my goal. Frankly, I’m pretty hooked. What I garnered from my comedic education was more than I could have expected. At its heart, the true beauty of comedy isn’t in making people laugh but in connecting with an audience.

Comedy proved to be not just a communication exercise but a healing one. What started out as a journey to improve communication within an office setting became a much deeper journey toward healing a burned-out shell of a physician. While I may not be a professional comedian or a renowned physician coach, I sincerely believe that in sharing my journey, I can help my fellow physicians who feel downtrodden, disenfranchised, and disenchanted by the weight of this medical system. Unless one has walked in the shoes of a shattered physician, it’s hard to understand the swamp which can swallow a physician whole.

Physicians are a particular breed. Many people see us as lucky because our job provides a stable, decent income. But we ultimately carry the burden of treating a human being’s most precious resource: health. Couple this responsibility with a broken health-care system—physicians face a hefty load indeed.

In the first section of this book, we’ll delve into physician burnout. First, I’ll relate my personal loss of faith in medicine. Then, we’ll look at the greater burden of burnout within the overall community of physicians. I used to think I was singular in my affliction. However, I later learned that physician